"I'll always prefer to play with women and hang out with women, and I'll always be a feminist"
About this Quote
Courtney Love’s line lands like a shrug that dares you to argue. “Prefer” is doing the heavy lifting: it’s not a manifesto about purity or exclusion so much as a practical, lived allegiance. In rock, preference is politics. To say she’d rather play with women isn’t just personal taste; it’s a refusal of the default setting where male bands are “normal” and women are guest stars, novelties, or liabilities.
The subtext is partly defensive, partly combative. Love has spent her career being reduced to proximity: to grunge, to famous men, to tabloid narratives that frame her as either villain or spectacle. “Hang out with women” reads as a corrective to the industry’s social economy, where access often routes through male approval and where solidarity among women is treated as suspicious or secondary. She’s implying: my creative life doesn’t need your gatekeepers.
Then she pins the whole thing down with the bluntest possible label: “I’ll always be a feminist.” The “always” matters. It’s a preemptive strike against the culture’s favorite move: praising women when they’re convenient, then disowning them when they’re messy, angry, ambitious, or unlikable. Love’s feminism isn’t packaged as inspirational branding; it’s a stance with consequences, including conflict.
Contextually, it echoes Riot Grrrl energy without adopting its gentler rhetoric. It’s feminism as band practice and backstage logistics, not a seminar: who gets hired, who gets heard, who gets to be complicated without being erased.
The subtext is partly defensive, partly combative. Love has spent her career being reduced to proximity: to grunge, to famous men, to tabloid narratives that frame her as either villain or spectacle. “Hang out with women” reads as a corrective to the industry’s social economy, where access often routes through male approval and where solidarity among women is treated as suspicious or secondary. She’s implying: my creative life doesn’t need your gatekeepers.
Then she pins the whole thing down with the bluntest possible label: “I’ll always be a feminist.” The “always” matters. It’s a preemptive strike against the culture’s favorite move: praising women when they’re convenient, then disowning them when they’re messy, angry, ambitious, or unlikable. Love’s feminism isn’t packaged as inspirational branding; it’s a stance with consequences, including conflict.
Contextually, it echoes Riot Grrrl energy without adopting its gentler rhetoric. It’s feminism as band practice and backstage logistics, not a seminar: who gets hired, who gets heard, who gets to be complicated without being erased.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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